Cheerful Abundance

a field notebook of suburban life

As one of the World’s Cheapest People, I decided to buy a snow blower this week, after most of winter has passed us by, because at the end of the season they are really on sale (seriously – like, half off), and off to Amazon I went, because shopping for me is pretty much all online these days, what with the preferring to just wear yoga pants and t-shirts all day, and my general disdain for shoes and all. Was that enough of a run-on sentence for you? Feel free to give me a ‘revise and resubmit’ for this blog entry.

We are expecting snow on Friday, lots of it, and I am sick of shoveling. I have shoveled so much snow in my lifetime, and we have two properties to shovel out. I thought this would be a nice surprise for my husband, this cute little snow blower, but as I searched around on Amazon to make sure it was really a good deal, and there wasn’t a better option, or a more powerful one, or one in a prettier colour, I discovered that not everyone defines ‘snow blower’ the way I do. Or sanity. Apparently, not everybody defines sanity the way I would, either.

Some people, apparently, think a ‘snow wheel’ is a good idea. Judging by the number of positive reviews, a lot of people do. Crazy people. Crazy people who suggest, in their very long, positive reviews, that this is ‘better than a snow blower’. People like this guy, who sent in a user-photo, to demonstrate to other Amazon shoppers how thrilled he is with using his ‘Wovel’, as they are affectionately nick named. Because that isn’t crazy, naming your shovel.

This guy didn’t put that black bar over his face: I did. Because much as I enjoy the winter wonderland of white privilege going on here, I can’t help but laugh. For real, is any culture as addicted to doing things the hard way as the WASPs are? This … contraption … costs about $15 less than the multidirectional 18″ snowblower I just bought. But I am sure the satisfaction of using an implement designed in the 1600s is all he needs to keep him warm while he ploughs out his 100 foot driveway.This is exactly the kind of thing that appeals to the WASPy people who move to little towns like mine – an implement that has a better modern equivalent, costs a fortune, and might contribute to your next heart attack, but about which the user can use as a means to smugly attest to how green they are, how environmentally conscious, how slightlybetter than the rest of us a Wovel afficionado might be.

I wish I had the kind of money that lets one buy ridiculous gag gifts for one’s loved ones. If I did, this thing would be under the Christmas tree of every person I knew. My husband would get two, one in pink. Gentle Reader, I would send you five, and one of them would be in a Lilly Pulitzer print.